{"id":37378,"date":"2016-02-06T13:20:37","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T10:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mountainguides.pro\/?p=37378"},"modified":"2026-09-10T16:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T13:10:40","slug":"when-the-mountains-changed-my-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mountainguides.pro\/ja\/2016\/02\/06\/when-the-mountains-changed-my-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"When My Mind Turned Over\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can say without any exaggeration that the mountains used to hold no attraction for me at all. I could not understand why people risk their health by going up there. But the day came when my mind, as the saying goes, turned right over, and a strong wish appeared to make it to the summit. It was a genuinely obsessive wish, and for a long time it gave me no peace. It was as though someone kept telling me that I had to do it, whatever it took. Thanks to some people I had recently met, who had already been to the top of that mighty mountain, I was able to turn the dream into reality. I will not go through every detail of the climb now. I will say only one thing: I really did enjoy the acclimatisation. I remember walking the mountain paths, and going onto the glacier to practise ice technique. And the best part, without a doubt, was the skiing. On the third day of the trip we set off towards the climbers’ hut. The hut itself stands at four thousand two hundred metres. This was for the final acclimatisation before the climb proper. We then spent about two days walking up to the Pastukhov Rocks and back, as a sort of training. At that height some of the climbers felt distinctly unwell and decided to go back down. That is a matter of physiology and has to be accepted: some people take altitude well and others feel ill. They were not downcast, though; they felt like real winners. They had been to a height they had never dreamt of before, and they had met extreme conditions. So you can say with complete confidence that they really did have something to be proud of. As for me, I can say with equal confidence that I coped with the altitude well. At the start your head often aches badly, as though you had overdone the drink the night before. But in time all of it passes. On the whole it is simply harder to breathe than it is lower down. Then, on the third day, we set off for the summit. At the start of the climb, as soon as we got a little above the clouds, a superb view opened up in front of us. At times it felt as though you were flying in an aircraft with the clouds lying beneath you, lit by a full moon. The beauty of it is quite out of the ordinary. You simply have to see it; words will not carry it. Towards morning the weather got much worse: a strong wind blew and snow fell. Visibility disappeared completely. And with every step it grew harder, until you wanted nothing at all. All you wanted was to fall down and stop. What helped then was only the thought of how good it would be once we were back down. And even though nothing could be seen, I felt happy, because I had got the better of myself and done it. But the best part was still ahead of me. As soon as you are down, you clean yourself up and sit in a comfortable caf\u00e9. And the people close to you will certainly say that only in those days did they truly understand how much I mean to them. I began to understand how much they mean to me. It felt as though I had been born again. You simply look at life differently now. A huge wish appeared, to live and to make things. After climbs like that you feel that you are really living rather than merely surviving. Beyond the climb of Elbrus itself, trips like this bring you remarkable new people to meet, and with them a mass of new impressions and feelings. People here come from every walk of life and every profession. Everyone talks as an equal; you feel no barriers of any kind. It really is worth doing, whoever you are. Your profession hardly matters, nor how close you are to sport. Absolutely anyone can taste victory. You can taste all sorts of material goods in this world, but feeling what a champion feels is not given to everyone. It is a particular state of the soul and the heart. So if you have that wish to bring something different into your life, to look inside yourself, as the saying goes, and feel like a champion, then take up mountaineering and go to the mountains.<\/p>\n\n

Mountaineering, unlike drugs and alcohol, will give you pleasure not once but always, and with no bad consequences. It is worth remembering, though, that it is habit-forming too.<\/p>\n\n

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What to read next<\/h2>\n

See the programme:<\/strong> All Mountain Guide programmes<\/a> \u00b7 Climbing Elbrus from the south, 9 days<\/a><\/p>\n